KARMA -

1. the belief that one’s thoughts and deed can be counted against or for them to their spirtual growth by counted against or for them to their spirtual growth during several life times in Sanskrit, it means “action”. Follow the law of cause and effect (TRASB)

2. ‘action’, measure of attachment, one’s worldly circumstances, psychological development and level of consciousness, often distinguishes as good of bad Karma, though in Indian tradition, all Karma is to transcended: Imperfections that are washed or burned by yoga, meditation, service, cultivating the Dharma or other spirtual practice. That which is created so long as one doesn’t realize one’s original nature. (Bodhidharma) Consequences of a thought, word or deed; reaping what is sown. Sum of the consequences of one’s thoughts, words, or deeds in this and previous lifetimes. Chain of moral cause and effect. Force generated by consciousness or actions that conditions this and future lives. Fate, the natural and necessary happenings of one’s lifetime, preconditioned by one’s past lifetimes. moral debt, worked out and repaid usually gradually, for past actions. That which the individual has instituted, carried forward, endorsed, omitted to do, or has done right, through the ages until the present moment ’ mythical rock symbolizing peace and courage. (Vietnamese) (NAD)

(See also: KARMA , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

The word ‘transmigration’ means passing from one life to another. The one great and fundamental tenet of most schools of Indian Philosophy, with the exception of the Charvaka or the materialist, is the belief in the immortality of the soul. The soul passes through a number of lives for attaining perfection. This is technically called ‘transmigration of souls’.

The death and dying and the life after death has always fascinated man. This is an excerpt from the book What Becomes Of The Soul After Death by Sri Swami Sivananda.

Read more here: » Reincarnation: Transmigration Of Souls

The mission of The Golden Age Foundation is to help humanity to a fundamental change where the consciousness undergoes a true transformation.

During the Oneness Festival, Dasajis, monks and nuns of The Golden Age Foundation, will be holding a number of satsangs covering topics like Enlightenment, Mysticism, Shristi – The Art of Parenting, Female Spirituality, Yoga & Meditation and about the art of living a joyful life.

For those who are really seeking a profound inner change, The Mukti courses are offered after the festival at The World University of Consciousness.

Read more here: » Enlightenment: The Mukti Courses at The World University of Consciousness

A Theosophical definition of Monad :

Monad

A spiritual entity which to us humans is indivisible; it is a divine-spiritual life-atom, but indivisible because its essential characteristic, as we humans conceive it, is homogeneity; while that of the physical atom, above which our consciousness soars, is divisible, is a composite heterogeneous particle.

Monads are eternal, unitary, individual life-centers, conscious-ness-centers, deathless during any solar manvantara, therefore ageless, unborn, undying. Consequently, each one such  - and their number is infinite  - is the center of the All, for the divine or the All is THAT which has its center everywhere, and its circumference or limiting boundary nowhere.

Monads are spiritual-substantial entities, self-motivated, self-impelled, self-conscious, in infinitely varying degrees, the ultimate elements of the universe. These monads engender other monads as one seed will produce multitudes of other seeds; so up from each such monad springs a host of living entities in the course of illimitable time, each such monad being the fountainhead or parent, in which all others are involved, and from which they spring.

Every monad is a seed, wherein the sum total of powers appertaining to its divine origin are latent, that is to say unmanifested; and evolution consists in the growth and development of all these seeds or children monads, whereby the universal life expresses itself in innumerable beings.

As the monad descends into matter, or rather as its ray  - one of other innumerable rays proceeding from it  - is propelled into matter, it secretes from itself and then excretes on each one of the seven planes through which it passes, its various vehicles, all overshadowed by the self, the same self in you and in me, in plants and in animals, in fact in all that is and belongs to that hierarchy. This is the one self, the supreme self or paramatman of the hierarchy. It illumines and follows each individual monad and all the latter's hosts of rays  - or children monads. Each such monad is a spiritual seed from the previous manvantara, which manifests as a monad in this manvantara; and this monad through its rays throws out from itself by secretion and then excretion all its vehicles. These vehicles are, first, the spiritual ego, the reflection or copy in miniature of the monad itself, but individualized through the manvantaric evolution, "bearing" or "carrying" as a vehicle the monadic ray. The latter cannot directly contact the lower planes, because it is of the monadic essence itself, the latter a still higher ray of the infinite Boundless composed of infinite multiplicity in unity. (See also Individuality)

See also: Monad , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Vasana's:

Vasana's: tendencies and impulses. Tendency on the basis of karma. Obstacle in one's own conditioning and experience, possibly also from former lives. Also the present awareness of previous observations. So also trauma's, recollections etc.

(See also: Vasana's , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

A new-born child manifests marks of joy, fear and grief. This is inexplicable unless we suppose that the child, perceiving certain things in this life, remembers the corresponding things of the past life. The things which used to excite joy, fear and grief in the past life, continue to do so in this life. The memory of the past proves the previous birth, as well as the existence of the soul.

Excerpt from All About Hinduism by Sri Swami Sivananda

Read more here: » Previous Births: Proofs For The Existence Of Previous Births

The doctrine of reincarnation or transmigration of souls is a fundamental tenet of Hinduism. The word reincarnation literally means embodiment again, coming again into a physical body. The individual soul takes again a fleshy covering. The word transmigration means passing from one place to another - passing into a new body.

Excerpt from All About Hinduism by Sri Swami Sivananda

Read more here: » Reincarnation: The Doctrine Of Reincarnation

Koran al-Qur'an (Arabic) (from qara to read)

Book, reading; the holy scripture of Islam, regarded by Moslems as the word of God (Allah) as delivered to his prophet Mohammed. The Koran explains that in heaven there is the mother of the book, well concealed. Piece by piece it was sent down to the prophet by means of an angel, spirit, or the angel Gabriel. Mohammed issued these revelations serially, each one being called a reading (qur'an) or a writing (kitab), and each particular one was also called a sura (a series) -- a word now used for each section or chapter, of which there are 114.

Mohammed dictated these suras to his immediate followers, who memorized them. But when some of these original reciters had lost their lives in the conflicts which occurred after the death of Mohammed, Omar suggested to Caliph 'Abu-Bekr (the successor of Mohammed) that they be reduced to writing. The commission to collect as many as possible of the narrations or parts of the revelations was given to Zaid, a native of Medina who had often acted as an amanuensis to Mohammed. This collection became the first Koran, which Azid wrote down in Arabic. Some years later a second redaction was made and all previous parts or manuscripts were burned: Zaid dictated the work to four scribes, and these four copies have come down to our own day.

The contents of the Koran are varied both in style and material: a declaratory style predominates; denunciations abound; idolatry and deification of any beings or things are condemned -- especially in regard to the worship of Jesus as the son of God, although Jesus and Moses are both regarded as holy prophets. A similarity to the Jewish Bible is observable, even to attributing customs of the Jews to the Arabs. Allah is glorified as the one, all-powerful God, and Mohammed as his prophet. Believers receive special instruction, and terrible punishments are threatened for nonbelievers. The doctrines of heaven and hell in the Moslem conception are forcefully presented.

See also: Koran, al-Qur'an, Quran

(See also: Koran, al-Qur'an, Quran , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Karma (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root kri to do, make, denoting action)

Action, the causes and consequences of action; that which produces change. One of the primary postulates of every comprehensive system of philosophy, described as a universal law, unceasingly active throughout universal nature and rooted in cosmic harmony, in its operations existing from eternity, inevitable, inherent in the very nature of things. It is action, absolute harmony, the adjuster; it preserves equilibrium by compensating and adjusting all actions, excessive or defective.

Hence it is called the law of retribution, implying neither reward nor punishment, based on nature's own urge of harmonious equilibrium. As such it has been personalized as Nemesis and by many other names, a practice which lends itself to popular imagining of avenging deities, such as God or Gods, Furies, Fates, Destiny, etc. As there are no such things as inanimate beings in the universe, it is not surprising to hear of karmic agents and of scribes or lipika who record karma. Karma must necessarily be transmitted by living beings of one grade or another, because there is no other means possible, and universal nature is but a vast, virtually frontierless being whose entire structure, laws, and operations are the innumerable hierarchies of beings in all-various grades, which thus not only condition nature, but are in fact universal nature itself. By our acts we create living beings which act upon other people and ultimately react upon ourselves. These beings, then, are agents of karma on one plane; on higher planes other orders of beings are such agents.

"An Occultist or a philosopher will not speak of the goodness or cruelty of Providence; but, identifying it with Karma-Nemesis, he will teach that nevertheless it guards the good and watches over them in this, as in future lives; and that it punishes the evil-doer -- aye, even to his seventh rebirth. So long, in short, as the effect of his having thrown into perturbation even the smallest atom in the Infinite World of harmony, has not been finally readjusted. For the only decree of Karma -- an eternal and immutable decree -- is absolute Harmony in the world of matter as it is in the world of Spirit. It is not, therefore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we, who reward or punish ourselves according to whether we work with, through and along with nature, abiding by the laws on which that Harmony depends, or -- break them.

"Nor would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in union and harmony, instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance of those ways -- which one portion of mankind calls the ways of Providence, dark and intricate; while another sees in them the action of blind Fatalism; and a third, simple chance, with neither gods nor devils to guide them -- would surely disappear, if we would but attribute all these to their correct cause. With right knowledge, or at any rate with a confident conviction that our neighbours will no more work to hurt us than we would think of harming them, the two-thirds of the World's evil would vanish into thin air. Were no man to hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for, nor weapons to act through. . . . We stand bewildered before the mystery of our own making, and the riddles of life that we will not solve, and then accuse the great Sphinx of devouring us. But verily there is not an accident in our lives, not a misshapen day, or a misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or in another life" (SD 1:643-4).

The effect of karma on human beings is merely the natural reaction from their actions, which may be described as only half-actions, for they are not completed until the reaction has ensued. Since the consequences of acts do not necessarily ensue immediately, it follows that at any stage of our career we may experience the results of actions performed a long time in the past.

Karma does not obviate free will or imply fatalism or mechanistic determinism. It is not merely a mechanical or mechanistic chain of linked cause and effect, by which every act is predetermined by some previous act and by no other cause. Man is a divine spark expressing itself through a series of vehicles, forming by means of these vehicles a series of egos, each conscious and operative on its own plane. Through his contract with higher planes, he has the power of bringing new forces into operation, so he is not inexorably bound in a mechanistic sense by his karma. On the other hand, to speak of an absolutely free will is meaningless; the will becomes more and more emancipated from conditions as we penetrate deeper into the recesses of our nature; but it must always be actuated by motive of some kind, and hence, being conditioned by motive, it comes under the operation of the universal law of karma.

There are many types of karma, such as human, racial, national, family, individual, etc. A chain of causation, stretched out in time, will be intersected by any given present moment; so that in speaking of a person, we may say he sums up in himself both his past and his future, he is his own karma. Since the whole universe and all the beings which compose it are linked and blended together, it follows that no person can have exclusive interests and that the karma of all beings is linked and, in a profound sense, identical. Karma in its moral aspect is cosmic justice. It should not interfere in any way with helping others, nor does it render futile the exercise of compassion, for we incur as much responsibility by refraining from action as by acting.

"Sow kindly acts and thou shalt reap their fruition. Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin" (VS 31).

(See also: Karma , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

The Experience Of The Spiritual

It is said that it is much easier to begin training in the Mysteries as a youth. One advantage of an early start is that there is considerable energy for growth and exploration of life in the early years while the quota of life, of prana, is full, before it is exhausted in the excesses of later life. A greater advantage, though, is that there is much that does not need to be unlearned. The knowledge of our Western, materialistic civilization is both a blessing and a curse. It informs us; it gives us power over material things; it has a great deal of truth to it. Yet with regard to things on the spiritual side of life, it has huge blind spots, huge gaps it won't recognize.

Read more here: » Body Mind and Spirit: The Experience Of The Spiritual

Past-Life Memories:

Mental images that are believed to be memories of previous lives.

See also Reincarnation, Past-life regression.

(See also: Past-Life Memories , Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

Hinduism and Karma

In simple terms, the law of karma suggests that a person's mental and physical actions determine the progress of his life on earth. What ever actions he undertakes, both his good and bad actions, impact his life in several ways and bring twists and turns in the course of his life. His bad actions lead him to suffering and unhappiness, while his good actions lead him to happiness and spiritual success.

Read more here: » Hinduism and Karma: The logic behind the concept of Karma

past-life therapy (Past Life Regression Therapy, PLRT, past lives therapy, regression therapy, transformational therapy): A form of psychotherapy that emerged in the 1960s and usually involves hypnotism.

Past-life therapists trace physical and psychological problems to traumatic events the patient experienced during previous incarnations.

(See also: Past-life therapy , Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

 Grandparents and grandchildren are often linked by a special affection for each other. There seems to be a natural bond between them, perhaps because both are a little outside the rush of life's middle years. When we look deeper into this relationship, however, we find traces of another pattern. We may discover one of the pathways connecting birth and death.

Read more here: » Parenting: The Grandparent Connection

Jataka (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root jan to be born)

A birth story; the 550 Jataka tales form one of the books of the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Buddhist canon. These stories are supposed to have been related by the Buddha and are considered by some to be the accounts of his former lives, and by others to be a group of tales built of occult truth and past experiences of the Buddha and treated in an allegorical way by some of his first and greatest disciples in order to depict a synopsis of the evolutionary history of the human race.

"Gautama, the Buddha, would not have been a mortal man, had he not passed through hundreds and thousands of births previous to his last. Yet the detailed account of these, and the statement that during them he worked his way up through every stage of transmigration from the lowest animate and inanimate atom and insect, up to the highest -- or man, contains simply the well-known occult aphorism: 'a stone becomes a plant, a plant an animal, and an animal a man.' Every human being who has ever existed, has passed through the same evolution.

But the hidden symbolism in the sequence of these re-births (jataka) contains a perfect history of the evolution on this earth, pre and post human, and is a scientific exposition of natural facts. One truth not veiled but bare and open is found in their nomenclature, viz., that as soon as Gautama had reached the human form he began exhibiting in every personality the utmost unselfishness, self-sacrifice and charity" (TG 65).

(See also: Jataka , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

woeful: Sad, pitiful, full of sorrow. - woeful birth: An unfavorable birth; a life of difficulties resulting from negative karmas accrued in previous lives.

(See also: Woeful birth , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Vedic Astrology and Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Health

In order to maintain a healthy mind we must realize the true realities of life. Therefore we must consider our spiritual nature to understand the subtleties of mind, intelligence and ego. Accordingly mental, emotional and spiritual health go together and, unless you have some knowledge in this regard, you cannot stop the onslaught of negative emotions brought on by ignorance and fear. We not only need to engage ourselves in some sort of fulfilling work to occupy our minds but need to understand why we fall victim to feelings of hate, envy, greed and avarice. These emotions only serve to destroy us intellectually, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. Why is there so much hate in the world, anyway?

Excerpt from "An Introduction to Vedic Astrology" by Howard Beckman

Read more here: » Vedic Astrology: Vedic Astrology and Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Health

Samskars

(Sanskrit) activator)

1) Habitual movement of the mind. Every action lays down a deposit in the mind, which conditions the mind and leads on to a new activity, thus keeping the doer enmeshed in the world of change.

2) The imprints left on the subconscious mind by experience (from this or previous lives), which then color all of life, one's nature, responses, states of mind, etc.

3) Mental programs

4) Ebbbngrams

(See also: Samskars , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Past-life therapy (Past Life Regression Therapy, PLRT, past lives therapy, regression therapy, transformational therapy): Form of psychotherapy that emerged in the 1960s and usually involves hypnotism. Past-life "therapists" purportedly trace physical and psychological problems to traumatic events the patient experienced during previous incarnations .

(See also: Past-life therapy , Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

PERICHORESIS

The word is Greek, as you might imagine: peri "around" + choreio "dance." But for the Greeks "dancing" wasn't the aimless shuffling we do. It was more like ballet. "Choreography" is a lot closer to the idea -- in which particular movements are carefully planned and executed. Travel from one dimension to another occurs simultaneously on all levels of reality. We travel in and out of the astral during sleep every night and think nothing of it. And, as you know, when the shaman interfaces with the earth by taking narcotic mushrooms or cacti into his system, he's moving deliberately and consciously between universes.

Parallel worlds stretch horizontally from sinister to dexter, or rather, from increasing shades of darkness to increasing degrees of light. Beings entering from the darkside are perceived by us not as merely ignorant but as demonic, whereas the wisdom of the beings from the lightside stands so far beyond our recognition that we see them simply as angelic beings. Depending on the level of reality that we happen to occupy, the dark and light worlds are perceived as more or less similar to the world we currently inhabit. On some levels of reality, the transfiguration is reversed and we perceive them as inhabiting regions above and below a horizontal plane of reality that stretches into inaccessible temporal limits of Past and Future. In such a world, reality is a given that is perceived as revealing itself only at such Past and Future vanishing points -- Alpha and Omega.

Everywhere horizontal parallel plane meets vertical parallel levels and an Aeon is established, symbolized by a cross. If the cross, however is not circumscribed by a circle (the familiar symbol of cross in circle, representing "earth"), there is no cohesion and the center does not hold. The so-called "extremes," in fact, are not extremes at all, but merely their own opposites in a spinning circle.

Because of the nature of infinity, we have to recognize that we may never stand at any of the four extremities, but always only at the exact center of the omniverse.

Notice also that in any formal religious painting, the god or saint is always placed in the exact center. If he is raised too high from the center, the lower world is given undue importance and power, because, after all, in completely "secular" pictures, the God has been raised so high as to have been left out of the picture altogether! Placing the God too far down divests him of his divinity because his intensity looks, on our level, simply grotesque. Likewise, if the God is placed too far to the left or right, an imbalance is also created.

Thus, uncircumscribed, the ends of the cross stretch unchecked into the infinite four directions and an uncontrollable wickedness is set forth into all manifestations. Without the "earthing" of the cross, there is no manifestation. The extremities lead only into infinite "otherness" and delusion. It is the inner being at the solar plexus that is the heart of the universe. When we nail (i.e., Christianize) the higher spirit of man to an ancient quadratic event, the center is blocked and closed forever. Moreover, the center has been locked in the past, away from the Eternal Now. Until the nail (Xtianity) has been pulled out, no further evolution is possible and Death will prevail.

The way out is toward the central, innermost point.

The parallel world-planes are accessible at all times. We move in and out of them constantly, but are mostly unaware of having done so. Occasionally we get the feeling that "things are suddenly different" or that "something is about to happen" and that means we've inadvertently stepped into a new probable world that is much different from the ones we've hitherto occupied. You can move back into the world you've just left, only if you do so at once.

Whatever can be imagined, exists, will exist or has existed. Whatever has existed or will exist continues to exist now because time is one of the four real dimensions of things. Alongside this Reality there are an infinite number of co-existent realities of equal "solidity" and "substance." There are also an infinite number of "probable" realities and an infinite number of "possible" worlds. A moment's reflection will show that if this is so, then, obviously, available access to them must not be merely possible, but inevitable. Jane Robert's Seth describes the infinite "probable worlds" stretching out in either direction from this one. The closest ones being hardly distinguishable from this, as we progress outward, the probable worlds become stranger, increasingly incomprehensible and frighteningly unpredictable. In the fifth dimensional world, four dimensional objects have their own much more complete and solid "substance" which we cannot perceive so long as we inhabit lower planes of being.

You can, however, willingly and deliberately get up and walk from this world into the nearest adjacency and from there to the next, and the next. The only problem is that you're playing roulette. There's no way of telling what kind of world you are moving into.

If you are seeking to avoid some trouble in this world, be advised that things could be a lot worse in the world next door. Moreover, if you leave unsolved problem behind, your karma will continue to take you back there in future lives until eventually you are forced to solve them. On top of that, if you leave muddy footprints behind you as you run through world after world, you'll have added onto your present karma the extra burden of going back to mop them up.

Actual entrance/exit sites are a matter of intuitive perception. Dimensional doorways are not likely, for instance, to be found in your living room. They need to be places you've never crossed before (except as interdimensional thresholds). It's best to look for two pillars to pass between -- a couple of tall trees in a forest or park make excellent pillars. The more difficult the access the better. And the direction and angle of entrance are crucial. Select a "picture" framed by the trees as most nearly representing the world you want to leave behind you and before you a picture of what intuitively or esthetically looks to be an improvement of that. Make sure that nothing passes across your line of vision as you are actually walking through. If necessary, keep your eyes closed or look down at your feet.

At first the difference between adjacent worlds is scarcely discernible. Variations only become immediately evident at some distance. But if you are observant, you will eventually begin to notice tiny, subtle changes for the better (or worse). By the time these changes become evident, it's already too late to go back where you came from. The metaphors of artistic symbolism, religion and magic can also assist in perichoretic travel. With the enhanced ability to will and to imagine, the human mind can perceive parts of alternate realities with increasing clarity and may begin to see how to transform the reality we normally inhabit. In fact, so many are the pathways to alternate experience, it's a wonder anyone still believes that reality has but a single face!

There is, to be sure, ultimately only the One Plenum in which everything else transpires, but that sphere transcends experience in the Void of Nirvana.

Although, as we've seen above, there are relatively easy methods of interplanary travel (between planes), the ability to discover significant doorways into alternate dimensions, advanced perichoresis, not only requires an out-of-the-ordinary state of consciousness, but is a difficult technique in its own right, mastered properly only by experienced shamans. For instance, travel through time in the past requires us to move "forward" (i.e., towards the Beginning of Time) simply by ignoring vast areas of experience and being -- as we also do in the present -- in order to maintain a strict continuity of our own. Travel from the future (i.e., the End of Time), however, even though employing the same declination, creates an ever-thickening wall behind us, preventing all possibility of return to the starting point.

Kenneth Grant (Outside the Circles of Time) provides us with insights into the sexual avenue of interdimensional perichoresis and at the same time describes the procedure for creating a "moonchild." In his system, the door to our world opens inward in order for us to receive extratellurian immigrants.

Bipolar human sexuality, explains Grant, parallels cosmogenesis and the sacred void corresponds to the female vagina. Everything comes out of and falls back into this same eternal darkness. The creative light is sucked into its bottomless depths where it is swallowed up by vampiric blackness. Therefore, the doorway to the vacuum or zero of space is a priestess who has been chosen for her "master of the art of dream control." By allowing herself to become a mirror of impression-reception, she is able to generate illusions, "for all form is fantasy, and exists only in the dreaming mirror of the mind."

A material looking glass is placed above her, slanted to receive the starlight. Now, by her psychic ability she can project whatever star morph the magician requires onto the looking glass. A second mirror, creating an infinite regression reflection is placed 11 feet away, eleven being the number of the famous 11th Pathway of Black Magic. The circle of Daath is the corresponding doorway in the Qabalah.

Thereupon the priest uses his penis as the intergalactic conduit of the astro-seminal energy. His vibrations and invocations encourage the dream-manipulating priestess to focus the desired star-morph entity onto the mirrors. In the ultimate orgasm of priest, priestess and dream-entity, the eldolon rises briefly to life and erupts from the mirror as its starseed transmission runs down from the star to impregnate her. The zygote achieved by this cosmocopulation is a unique blend of human and extraterrestrial "genes."

According to most students, monstrous beings invisible to ordinary consciousness are entering our universe in unprecedented numbers, through this same interdimensional sexual doorway. (Apparently our time is a vector of unique significance.) The fantasy film, Ghostbusters, was a facetious rendering of this understanding, but revealed a good deal more than most viewers realized. Kenneth Grant teaches a heterosexual tantrism by which one may ride out again through the same door on the back of one of these demonic beasts and thereby escape. He calls this, again, the 11th Pathway. Others propose that there are homosexual and even solitary practices what serve this purpose equally well.

Sex and death are the two most common and well-known methods of conveyance between worlds, but such exclusively Scorpionic merkabahs are by no means the only ones. All of these methods follow the horizontal direction of planes to left and right, from darkness into light, or vice versa. There is also travel in the vertical direction from layers of reality and consciousness above and below. These cris-crossing horizontal and vertical planes endlessly extend out and recede into the vastnesses. Some of the planes are commonly thought, by the average person, to be "schizophrenic" because they appear to leave the traveller suspended in his "own little world." But such planes are of great importance to the magician or yogin. Reality, we must understand, is entirely a matter of the manipulation of illusion. The teacher, Gurdjieff, once pointed out that there is only one thing in the entire universe, but it is repeated endlessly in order to provide the illusion of "difference." Even chemistry and physics bear this out. The difference between each element is simply a difference in the number of their atomic electrons: Hydrogen 1, Helium 2, Lithium 3...

Some writers believe that there are denizens of other dimensions who use various perichoretic chariots that resemble the astral projections of those whose time and locality they visit. For Ezekiel and Daniel it was a fiery wheel bearing the tetramorph. For the Dogons it was a star ship. For our great grandfathers in the 19th Century it was frequently an airship. But they aren't just psychic experiences, say the witnesses, ufo's leave evidence behind ... a burned-out circle on the lawn, a map with indecipherable writing, MIBs, etc.

My own interdimensional visits to "the Other Side" have been neither A.D.E.'s nor OOBE's. They have occurred either through true-dreaming or by psychotropic methods, i.e., strictly via astral travel. In all, I have several times visited the "conventional" Astral Plane -- or abode of the (after-dead) spirits, three or four times encountered higher beings (although only at a distance), dwelt in the All-Consciousness of All-Phyla and once visited a previous time. Lately I have begun experimenting with ordinary consciousness as a routine means of perichoresis. The occult path I've travelled (until now) has always been the lonely one of the hermit. The beings I've encountered have been the traditional custodians of the pathways, that is to say, those archetypes hovering somewhere between being and non-being. Else they comprise the angels, Gods and daimones of pantheons we already know. But I have increasingly come under the purview of something more important: the existence of what seems to be an infinite number of Eternal Doorways between worlds. These doorways are available to us, of course, under very special circumstances -- that is to say, in altered psychic states lying clearly outside normal consciousness: Yoga, Tantra, sex magic, primitive rites of passage, repetitive rhythms (micro-events), sensory deprivation or stimulation, pain, extreme trauma, trance, all the multifarious REM/sleep/hypnotic states, rushes of adrenaline or fatigue intoxication, epilepsy, metamorphic anomaly, drug intoxication, illness, psychosis proper, thanatolepsy and death. (See SOLIPSISM.)

(See also: PERICHORESIS , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

DEVACHAN

The Land where the Gods are reborn. Life's threshold, located between the manvataras and between earth-lives. The higher realm above the astral (Skt. and Tibetan deva, "light" + chan, "dwelling place"). Madame Blavatsky, in writing of the realm of Devachan and the "wheatfields of Aanroo", is careful to point out that Manas splits here, after death, between the higher and lower minds. Only the higher mind remains. The lower, self-directed mind goes with the kama-rupa to the "Abode of Shells", or the place of the Hebrew Qlipoth. Our "I" or "atman" (with small a) rejoins that spiritual part of itself that is not incarnated, and as "Atman (large A), it proceeds on through the aionic planets. According to HPB, in Devachan we relive the totality of our past lives and re-experience our "enduring selfhood". We relive the trans-personal "I" which our labors, filtered through numberless incarnations, have made of the monadic essence which we originally introduced into form. The visualized solar system is the materialistic waste of an as-above-so-below operation. Hence all archetypes and ideas ultimately surface to the material world. Here we blueprint all the evolutions and involutions ("Not the One in many, but the oneness of the Many"). Rulers of these archetype-beings along with their human evolution make up the Dhyan-Choans, gods or "contemplative lords".

There are rare beings who sacrifice their rest, Devachan or Nirvana to remain earthbound in continual rebirth out of compassion for mankind. Animals, though their astral bodies possess some temporary survival potential, have no ego-manas, hence no Devachan. The animal monad can reincarnate only as a higher species. By the same token, HPB states (Secret Doctrine), "Eastern philosophy rejects the Western theological dogma of a newly-created soul for every baby born, as being as unphilosophical as it is impossible in the economy of nature. There must be a limited number of monads growing..."

Prior to Zoroaster and the Forth, or present, race, there was no Devachan, but only rebirth, phoenix-like out of the ashes of the previous body. Xtianity teaches the doctrine of the Old Third Race in which there is no higher Manas and the human monad does not reincarnate until the Second Coming.

In orthodox Xtianity there is no rebirth - only literal resurrection on the Day of Judgment with Christ's return (this opening of graves does not accompany the return of Zoroaster, Kalki or the Maitreya Buddha). Also, unlike the Theosophical version of the hereafter, there is no comparable split of spirit from soul in orthodox Xtianity. Reincarnation is a Gnostic or Neoplatonic heresy (Plato called this the "Realm of Ideas").

(See also: DEVACHAN , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

Free Will The inherent power or capacity of choice, divine in its origin, which every being in the kosmos exercises in some degree as, consciously or unself-consciously, it evolves forth its essential self. Every thing and being has its own essential characteristic or svabhava and, the universal urge being towards self-expression and self-consciousness, of necessity each has its relative share of inherent free will with which to work out its destiny. Since evolution is a coming forth of the involved monadic essence, the unfolding of inner capacities and attributes, it cannot be produced, however stimulated, by something outside of itself. The one divine will is the force behind evolution on all planes of manifestation throughout the kosmos. Hence, each entity, as a unit of the divine All, has its portion of free choice and power to bring forth what is within itself.

Free will is manifesting, however feebly, in vegetative or automatic action in the whirling electrons of the atom; also in characteristic actions of matter, such as cohesion, polarity, and electricity; in the varied growths of vegetation; in the range of animal activities; in the evolving human being, and in the perfected humans called gods; and so forth up the scales of being. It acts in the urge which brings the monad to cast off its former garments in the minerals in order to assume new ones in the vegetable kingdom, from which again, after casting off these latter, it progresses to the animal kingdom; and from this again, the monad rejects beast forms and assumes the human shape where it gains in range and momentum because now acting self-consciously in greater or less degree.

The karma which brings to a person conditions which he does not choose or wish for in his present life, is yet consistent with his free will because he is the result of all his previous actions, now expressing themselves in results. These reactions of causes which he set in motion in this or in former lives, being the result which was inherent in his previous choices, is a self-imposed destiny; but it is not fatalism, because he is now free to decide again how he will meet the results of what he previously had chosen for himself. Karma is mathematically exact, both physically and metaphysically, but it is so constantly involved with new elements of choice and of proportion that its effects of necessity are measured on a sliding scale of being, so to say.

There is an automatic phase of free will in the purposeful instinct which marks the various activities of even minute and lowly forms of life. The unself-conscious beasts are protected, and therefore guided, by the wills of celestial beings who make the so-called laws of nature, yet even the beasts instinctively choose to run true to their own inner types or svabhava. They unconsciously will to be themselves and to copy no other. They have free will exactly in proportion to their consciousness, just as any person has it in the higher degrees of his intelligence and more active intuition.

Thus human beings have the power to work out their evolution, for the kingdom of heaven is taken by strength. The gods have gone ahead on the pathway towards omniscience -- so far as our universe is concerned -- by their own individual efforts consciously to act with an ever-enlarging measure of harmony with the one divine will. Thus the volume or power of free will is in strict proportion with the degree in which the entity has brought forth the central spark of divine willing fire which animates all that is. Nevertheless no single being or entity has completely unfettered and perfectly irresponsible free will, because of its relative imperfection and because of its inescapable subordination to greater wills, each such entity ever evolving from its stage of imperfection as it ascends along the scales of being: those on the higher rungs of the hierarchical ladder consciously willing in ever-enlarging degree to follow the greater divine will which holds all in its keeping.

(See also: Free Will , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)